It impinged on the hull,
and in the flash I caught a photographic glimpse of his conning tower,
on which was painted the letter E, followed by two numbers, of which
one was a two I think, and the other a nine.
By this time he was on my port quarter and rapidly disappearing; in a
frenzy of rage I managed to get my revolver out, and whilst with the
left hand I pressed the diving alarm, with the right hand I emptied the
magazine in his direction. When we were down, Alten practically
refused to believe me, which made me very pleased that in descending I
had trod on a pair of hands which turned out to be his, as he had
started up the ladder to the upper conning tower when he first heard
the alarm.
I presume our opponent dived as well, but evidently he had put two and
two together and used his aerial at some period, for when at dawn we
poked a periscope up, a flotilla of destroyers appeared to be looking
for something, which "something" was us, unless I am much mistaken; so
we bottomed, where we have been ever since. The Hydroplane Operator
keeps up a monotonous sing-song to the effect that "Fast running
propellers are either receding or approaching." The crew are collected
round the mine-tubes as I write, and are singing a lugubrious song, the
refrain of which runs:
"Death for the Fatherland! Glorious fate,
This is the end that we gladly await."
Why will the seamen always become morbid when possible? And there is
not a man amongst them who is not inwardly thinking of some beer-hall
in Bruges, though I suppose that like their betters they have their
romances of a tenderer kind.
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